Scum of the Earth

"It's frightening to see that these people think that the Internet is a completely lawless space. The most shocking part of this -- aside from the horrific child-abuse material that we were sometimes sent -- was just the fact that it was so easy to catch these people. They have zero risk perception."
"It was so clear that these people were after 10-year-old children. Some men would say, 'I'll pay you $500 to see you and your six-year-old sister have sex."
Spokesperson, Terres des Hommes, Amsterdam

Identified: Hans Guyt, project director of Terre des Hommes, stands in front of a wall plastered with pictures of men suspected of soliciting a fake underage girl. 1,000 of these have been given to Interpol

If they had been in possession of enough operating funds, the group, set up to find identification information on child predators lurking on the Internet looking for opportunities to gratify their  depraved sexual appetites, would have been able to identify details about more than that of the thousand adults from 71 countries they identified during a ten-week project they have just wrapped up.

They set up a sting operation allowing adults to pay to witness a child perform sex acts on a webcam.

This international children's rights group announced that they had secured names, addresses, telephone numbers and email addresses of 54 Canadians. Information now in the hands of Interpol, which will pass it on to national law-enforcement authorities for them to investigate further. There were over 254 Americans and 110 Britons they were able to identify. Lack of additional funds and resources was all that held them back from making further identification possible.

What the group had done was to produce a computer-generated Philippine girl of ten, using her image and her 'voice' to sign on to public chat rooms known to cater to teens and children. Her presence immediately attracted predators eager to make contact. "Show me your legs", wrote one. "Do you like to wear your bra?" prompted another. "Babyyy how much? $$$", one pervert naming himself Dirty asked.

Plan: The character of Sweetie was created as webcam sex with minors usually involves men from Western countries paying children from impoverished countries, such as the Philippines, for sex shows

The pretend little girl was named "Sweetie", created through a 3-D animation. As a result of her animated presence, 20,172 adults offered to pay between  $1 and $100 to have her perform a sex show through webcam production. They were prepared to use untraceable prepaid credit cards. And nothing would keep them from their ravingly depraved sex drive's intention, despite being informed on several occasions of her age.

Sting: After posing as her online, they received more than 20,000 inquiries from 71 countries, and on Monday they passed the identities of 1,000 of these predators to Interpol. 254 came from the U.S.